City Editor, The Age

There has been much research done on domestic violence and crime in rural Australia, but little done before now on sexual harassment in regional workplaces. Photo: Erin Jonasson

A "cultural epidemic" of sexual harassment is taking place in rural Australian workplaces, but little is being done to tackle the issue, according to new research to be presented at Melbourne University on Thursday.

Canberra researcher Skye Saunders, in one of the first studies of its kind, has looked at the prevalence of sexual harassment in regional Australia. Based on interviews with 107 rural women, mostly employees, Ms Saunders said the results had proved alarming.

The research showed 73 per cent of employees said they had been sexual harassed by a colleague, while 70 per cent said they had witnessed a colleague being harassed in the workplace. In the agricultural industry, 93 per cent of women said they had been harassed.

Ms Saunders, who is also a workplace relations lawyer, said some of the worst stories she heard came from women in the mining industry. "I spoke to women who tolerated as a relatively regular norm men urinating in their boots" before they started a work shift, she said.

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The research, done as part of a PhD with the University of Canberra, will be presented in a speech to Melbourne University's law school on Thursday.

The study, titled Whispers from the Bush: Sexual Harassment in Australian Rural Workplaces also found that women who experienced sexual harassment were often extremely reluctant to talk about it.

"The ongoing tradition of male dominance in the Australian bush", Ms Saunders said, meant there were "particular complexities for women who wish to disclose incidents of sexualised behaviour".

These included fears of being sacked for complaining, fear of being ridiculed or deemed a trouble-maker, or being subject to community gossip.

There has been much research done on domestic violence and crime in rural Australia, but little done before now on sexual harassment in regional workplaces.

Ms Saunders said that it became clear over the course of her research that employers had an attitude that viewed sexual harassment as "not particularly serious".

"That builds up a culture of acceptance and the bizarre becomes normalised," she said.

Ms Saunders, who grew up regional New South Wales, said there needed to be more done to tackle sexual harassment in Australia's regions, and women needed to be far more easily able to access advice, counseling and mediation, and basic legal assistance when appropriate, she said.

SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN BUSH WORKPLACES

* Women who reported being sexually harassed by a colleague: 73%

* Women who said they had witnessed a colleague being sexually harassed: 70%